May I expand what I said earlier? If you can bear with me, I said something about commercial reality and commercial risk.
There is commercial reality (assets minus liabilities = continuing development) and commercial risk (directing development to issues which will not attract new purchasers and the nextgen crowd). Which might suggest that iOS and emergent mobile platforms will attract the development dollar. Portable connective devices and the internet are the fastest, most rapidly changing environment we live in. Connectivity speeds are rising, you get in your SUV or new car and the mobile device you have is automatically connected to the navigation and communications in the car. We are living in a connected world, rapidly changing. In the light of that, I have a question for myself: "
Am I being asked what continuing development might be profitably allocated to the PC/Mac platforms?" Because I sense that the spending dollar is shifting and attention - concentration spans are decreasing among the nextgen crowd. In some regard, long periods of attention in a game are somewhat in danger of being unattractive to nextgen.
I sense that we are being asked that important question about the PC/Mac platforms. Laptops, Airbooks, Surface Book, iPhone loom large in our futures. Canonical just released an Ubuntu tablet. I was walking through the local mall yesterday thinking about people walking past stores and they get a txt message with a special offer available if they walk into the store and purchase in the next 15 minutes. That kind of future is here, right now.
Never mind current issues, they will get attended to; there is a bug list and it has priorities. You know how to change those priorities. Look how quickly bugs got fixed during the beta process; look how quickly developers got to issues and provided new builds; look to how much time Tony spent online responding to reports, new bugs, new releases, guiding people with installation and patch issues during this process. There is real commitment here. You will find all the evidence in the SP1 threads and RC threads in the Kickstarter forum.
I sense that Tony is responding to "any additional comments" in the surveys where users asked for interaction and two way communication. What you do with this is up to you.
What comes from this conversation is the fruit of your creativity. Or, lack of creativity and a march to the next hotfix as many of you seem to want. Train "Next" is possibly what we are being asked to envisage, forsee and create, for
imagination is the nation of images. We need to have innovation that sets goals that both we and the developers can aspire to, together. Just like SP1 - for all its faults and broken dreams - we did this together. I know what angst and betrayal are, I was here when we were presented with CM for the first time and horror of fixes and upgrades. We are past those days. I am confident in what I sense - that Tony and the development team are in a conversation with us to assure a bright, workable, commercial success along with satisfaction for the user.
We create the world we live in; we create our reality with our thoughts, feelings, actions. If imagination is the nation of images, what do you want to imagine,
foster, image for the shared future of this community? Developers need to be inspired, also. Developers need that sense of accomplishment, achievement, and pride, also, just as much as we respond to images in routes in development and say to content creators of all hues, "
Brilliant".
Many here would spend a fair proportion of their day - or evening in this game, for various reasons. For me, it is sometimes creativity, sometimes relaxation and fun. When I was away from Trainz, I tried a sim where the upgrades ran me under the permanent way and the braking curves were so horrible, that if I ever reincarnate and have another life, I will never drive any EMU or DMU in the UK. Another sim I played for a while was a closed sim, no changes, just load the trainset, pick a timetable and go. It was good to veg out with, I used to drive from the back and try and guess where the stations were. And pull up in the right place. Fun, but essentially a veg-out relaxation.
Do you take a look at the real world of railway operations and then look to placing that in this game? What new developments do you see and what do you want to see in the game? Driverless trains? More light rail? Light rail running on permanent way? Cab signalling like they have in Asian nations? Chinese fast trains? Japanese long nose fast trains? New cabs that can be attached to western rolling stock - look at some of the new EMU cabs and new Russian locomotives! What is attracting your attention in preservation? Do you want to see automatic train stops on all signals? Stop and reset the brake line? Do you want staff or token or train orders visible in the HUD? Do you want to repeat your train order to the dispatcher or controller typing it out on the keyboard when you get to a new section? What do you see, what do you look at, what engineering/design/planning pages and periodicals do you read? (I actually read some pages on new contracts, future designs, future planning, new projects allocated. I am interested in the mess in Saudi Arabia with the Haramain High Speed Rail Project, sackings of project coordinators and construction partners, and the fast trains to Medina and Jeddah and the engineering problems with fast trains and desert sands. Some people call that place Sandi Arabia. Interesting. ) Do you want to see LED signals in cabs and on the permanent way? What do you say is innovative in the railway world. What do you say is innovative in gaming? What do you say about the directions that our content creators going in at the moment (besides upgrades)? Are content creators providing any lead, any directions?
If
imagination is the nation of images, well, then, the primary question in this thread for this nation of users here in Trainz:
What future do you imagine for this game?
my 2¢
In Surveyor:
I'd like to see SMITE and AMMMP come back in Surveyor.
(I love the havoc SMITE can wreak.)
I'd like to see add random scenery immediately give option to mask or select the area random scenery is added to
In Driver
I'd like to be able to edit the environment during the session
I'd like to see an option to run -freeintcam in driver
In the real world, train headlights to not turn signal coronas white at night.
I'd like to see signals indicate correct aspect and colour, and not white light at night.
The next big thing?
Many people are putting up very realistic photos in the competitions and screenshots threads.
Very long routes are being created. Faster trains are being constructed. Super-elevation is the norm. Just as we can allocate loads to similar wagons in a rake, do you want to repeat construction actions in Surveyor?
I am thinking of some of the recent EMU (ED4M, ED4MK, ED6, ED9) and Russian? Bulgarian? locomotives and similar EMU-DMU that you have to go through a 10 - 18 step preparation to get moving, and I tire of looking at Russian? Bulgarian? Something or rather? Youtube videos to learn how to start this or that motive power. I don't think that is the next big thing, but if you are accomplished at that or like that, that's great. However, I do know that with some new rolling stock, if you skip steps in train preparation, and have a fault on the main line, you could be in for a long list of questions from the road foreman. Do you want something like that? Step-thru fault finding on train failures? You might be able to drive, you might know the road, but in the real world of single - human operated trains, you won't get out there on the road without
absolutely spectacular fault-finding skills. So: Do you want something like that? Step-thru fault finding on train failures?
I notice with new EMU-DMU stock and newer locomotives of all kinds is that when the train fails, someone has to come out with a laptop and reset the on-board OS. Do you want a new HUD where you can do that in Driver? Pull some of the options in the HUD in test track over into Driver to recreate what they have to do in the real world today?
I made reference to Saudi Arabia and sandstorms with very fast trains. Real operational and construction issue. Do you want sandstorms in the environment?
Trailing single arm pantos leave the contact wire at high speed, dropping traction. Do you want that? Do you want simulated panto snags, OH torn down and repair teams to come out and fix things, ladders, lamps, OH vehicles appearing?
I wrote an article the other day about a blind seer, a prophet. Viewing the website, she said a few things about the future, and I was pleasantly surprised to see a prediction that by 2020, trains will be running on captured sunlight or utilising sunlight to run. The prophet said something like "running on rails powered by the sun". Well, she passed in 1996, long before solar panels were in the fields and on the roofs of our homes.
Do you want to start making a system of solar powered trains?
(btw, the prophet said, "very fast trains"). Blind as she was, I doubt she had ever seen one or even
been on one.
Thanks for reading.